Food stamps history has McMahon at odds with GOP

Brian Lockhart

Updated 11:58 pm, Tuesday, October 2, 2012

It was 40 years ago, and only to purchase about a week's worth of groceries. But Linda McMahon's temporary reliance upon food stamps has the Republican candidate again distancing herself from the GOP's conservative orthodoxy as she runs for a U.S. Senate seat in blue-state Connecticut.

"I can tell you in today's economy, with so many people out of work, I would not support cuts to our food and nutrition programs," McMahon told Hearst Connecticut Newspapers on Tuesday.

Her position may blunt Democratic claims that McMahon is comfortable with the most conservative elements of the GOP. Yet it also opens her up to further criticism that her pledge to cut taxes and the federal budget while preserving politically sensitive programs is little more than posturing.

McMahon, a millionaire who during her first bid for office in 2010 and again this year often recounts her family's humble beginnings, was asked to weigh in on proposals by some in her party affecting social safety net programs, including food stamps.

Most recently, the Republican-run House of Representatives was unable to pass a farm bill, in part because of divisions between moderates and conservatives over how deeply to cut food stamp spending.

Democrats have been eager to tie McMahon and Republican candidates in general to austerity measures touted by U.S. Rep. and vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, R-Wis.

McMahon and her husband, Vince, used food stamps briefly in 1970, when the young couple and just-born son, Shane, were still struggling. Over a decade later, following personal bankruptcy in the late 1970s, the couple began transforming Vince's father's company into what eventually became Stamford-based World Wrestling Entertainment.

"We had graduated from college, didn't have any health insurance, I had no job, Vince had taken the job in the rock quarry," McMahon recalled. "Just that one week we had an opportunity for food stamps and used them. I'll tell you it was something I was grateful to have."

McMahon, who has been focused on wooing middle-class voters with a plan for tax cuts and job creation, said generally she believes it is important for the federal government to maintain a safety net.

Although her jobs plan proposes a 1 percent annual reduction in federal spending, McMahon said her goal is to review "duplicative and overlapping programs" in government.

"I would want to make sure we are not in any way taking away the benefits of our safety net until we get our country back on track and back to work," she said. "If we get people back to work we're going to take people out of the poverty levels."

She was among the Republican candidates who last month repudiated GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney's comments at a fundraiser that 47 percent of voters believe they are victims entitled to food, health care, housing and other government benefits.

And McMahon's campaign spent the past few days reassuring voters she will preserve and strengthen Social Security and Medicare benefits after video footage surfaced last week of the candidate suggesting at an April tea party forum she supports sunset provisions for the former.

Her opponent, Democratic U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy, said Tuesday that McMahon is trying to have her cake and eat it too, promising tax cuts and a smaller government without explaining how to pay for it.

"Linda McMahon says she supports cuts except when a reporter asks her about a specific program," Murphy said.

McMahon is hardly the only Northeast Republican who has had to reconcile a past reliance on federal aid with the viewpoints of the more conservative factions of the party.

Jon Golnik, a candidate for U.S. representative in Massachusetts, proudly calls himself a "product of the Pell grant system," a reference to the college aid program for low-income students. His opponent in the GOP primary suggested eliminating Pell grants and critics of the Ryan budget have argued it would also prove detrimental to the program.

"Look, if it wasn't for Pell grants, I wouldn't have gotten through school. My father lost his job my first month in school. My choices were pretty stark. It was go home to Florida or stay in Dartmouth. It took me two years to get there, so I said I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure I stay," Golnik said.

"I consider myself a fiscal conservative, but there are areas I depart with the Republican Party," Golnik said. "I don't think it makes me less of a Republican."